Testy - Definitions from Dictionary.com

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Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This

tes·ty

Audio Help [tes-tee] Pronunciation Key

–adjective, -ti·er, -ti·est.

irritably impatient; touchy.

[Origin: 1325–75; late ME testi, alter. of MF testu headstrong; r. ME testif < MF. See test², -ive

]

—Related forms

tes·ti·ly, adverb

tes·ti·ness, noun

—Synonyms tetchy, edgy, snappish, cross, irascible. See irritable.

—Antonyms composed.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Testy

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American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

tes·ty Audio Help (těs'tē) Pronunciation Key
adj. tes·ti·er, tes·ti·est
Irritated, impatient, or exasperated; peevish: a testy cab driver; a testy refusal to help.

[Alteration of Middle English testif, headstrong, from Old French testu, from teste, head, from Late Latin testa, skull; see teston.]

tes'ti·ly adv., tes'ti·ness n.

Word History: To the casual eye testy and heady seem to have no connection; a more thoughtful examination reveals that both words refer to the head. The head in heady is easy to see in both the form and meanings of the word. The earliest sense, first recorded in a work composed before 1382, is "headlong, headstrong," which is clearly a "head" sense; but so is the better-known current sense "apt to go to the head, intoxicating." To see the head in testy, we must look back to the Old French word testu, the source of our word. Testu is derived from the Old French word teste, "head" (Modern French tête). In English testy developed another sense, "aggressive, contentious," which passed into the sense we are familiar with, "irritable."

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Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
testy

1510, "impetuous, rash," from M.E. testif "headstrong" (c.1374), from Anglo-Fr. testif, from O.Fr. testu "stubborn," lit. "heady," from teste "head," from L.L. testa "skull," in L. "pot, shell" (see tester (2)). Meaning "easily irritated" is first recorded 1526.

WordNet - Cite This Source - Share This

testy
adjective
easily irritated or annoyed; "an incorrigibly fractious young man"; "not the least nettlesome of his countrymen"

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

Testy

Test\, n. [OE. test test, or cupel, potsherd, F. t[^e]t, from L. testum an earthen vessel; akin to testa a piece of burned clay, an earthen pot, a potsherd, perhaps for tersta, and akin to torrere to patch, terra earth (cf. Thirst, and Terrace), but cf. Zend tasta cup. Cf. Test a shell, Testaceous, Tester a covering, a coin, Testy, T[^e]te-[`a]-t[^e]te.]

1. (Metal.) A cupel or cupelling hearth in which precious metals are melted for trial and refinement.

Our ingots, tests, and many mo. --Chaucer.

2. Examination or trial by the cupel; hence, any critical examination or decisive trial; as, to put a man's assertions to a test. "Bring me to the test." --Shak.

3. Means of trial; as, absence is a test of love.

Each test every light her muse will bear. --Dryden.

4. That with which anything is compared for proof of its genuineness; a touchstone; a standard.

Life, force, and beauty must to all impart, At once the source, and end, and test of art. --Pope.

5. Discriminative characteristic; standard of judgment; ground of admission or exclusion.

Our test excludes your tribe from benefit. --Dryden.

6. Judgment; distinction; discrimination.

Who would excel, when few can make a test Betwixt indifferent writing and the best? --Dryden.

7. (Chem.) A reaction employed to recognize or distinguish any particular substance or constituent of a compound, as the production of some characteristic precipitate; also, the reagent employed to produce such reaction; thus, the ordinary test for sulphuric acid is the production of a white insoluble precipitate of barium sulphate by means of some soluble barium salt.

Test act (Eng. Law), an act of the English Parliament prescribing a form of oath and declaration against transubstantiation, which all officers, civil and military, were formerly obliged to take within six months after their admission to office. They were obliged also to receive the sacrament according to the usage of the Church of England. --Blackstone.

Test object (Optics), an object which tests the power or quality of a microscope or telescope, by requiring a certain degree of excellence in the instrument to determine its existence or its peculiar texture or markings.

Test paper. (a) (Chem.) Paper prepared for use in testing for certain substances by being saturated with a reagent which changes color in some specific way when acted upon by those substances; thus, litmus paper is turned red by acids, and blue by alkalies, turmeric paper is turned brown by alkalies, etc. (b) (Law) An instrument admitted as a standard or comparison of handwriting in those jurisdictions in which comparison of hands is permitted as a mode of proving handwriting.

Test tube. (Chem.) (a) A simple tube of thin glass, closed at one end, for heating solutions and for performing ordinary reactions. (b) A graduated tube.

Syn: Criterion; standard; experience; proof; experiment; trial.

Usage: Test, Trial. Trial is the wider term; test is a searching and decisive trial. It is derived from the Latin testa (earthen pot), which term was early applied to the fining pot, or crucible, in which metals are melted for trial and refinement. Hence the peculiar force of the word, as indicating a trial or criterion of the most decisive kind.

I leave him to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish his commediation. --Shak.

Thy virtue, prince, has stood the test of fortune, Like purest gold, that tortured in the furnace, Comes out more bright, and brings forth all its weight. --Addison.

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